Governments urged to stockpile antibiotics for a future flu pandemic

Stockpiling antibiotics to use in the event of apandemic influenza outbreakcould save billions of pounds worldwide, according to a new analysis.

In the first study to model the financial value of holding antibiotics back to use in a global flu outbreak, researchers have found that an effective drug would save the world between $3 and $4 billion (£2.3 to £3.1 billion). Theofficial report into the 2009 swine fluepidemic found that it cost the UK alone £1.24 billion.

Between50 and 100 millionpeople died during the 1919 Spanish flu pandemic when the virus swept across the globe but the vast majority of these deaths were caused by secondary bacterial infections rather than the flu virus itself.